Amazon, Flipkart sale amasses Rs 15 crore in 5 days

The five day Amazon’s Great Indian Sale and Flipkart’s Big Billion Days, which got over recently, has been able to amass a whopping Rs 15,000 crore.

In a report by the RedSeer Consulting it has come to light that e-tailers had a better “sales performance over the five festive days from October 9-14”, generating about Rs 15,000 crore (around USD 2 billion) in sales. This translates into about 64 per cent year-on-year growth compared to USD 1.4 billion (around Rs 10,325 crore) generated in the 2017 edition.

Speaking to PTI, Amazon India Senior Vice President and Country Head Amit Agarwal said their ‘Great Indian Festival’ sale in the first 36 hours alone nearly surpassed the numbers it registered during the same period last year.

“The event exceeded our most aggressive plans across all the categories…more than 80 per cent of the new customers came from small towns, and we received orders from 99 per cent of the serviceable pin-codes in the country in just four days,” he added.

He added that smartphone sales accounted for the largest portion in terms of value, while fashion was the biggest in terms of the units shipped.

Arch rival Flipkart said its latest edition of the Big Billion Days sale has “smashed all the existing records to set new benchmarks for the entire Indian retail industry”.

“Flipkart has recorded over 70 per cent share of entire Indian e-commerce market in the 5 day-BBD’18 sale, matching scale with global marquee retail events…Gross merchandise value (GMV) grew 80 per cent over the last year, whereas units grew by close to 2X year-on-year,” a Flipkart spokesperson said.

Walmart-backed Flipkart claimed to be cornered 85 per cent share in online fashion market and 75 per cent share in large appliances category during the sale, while three-in-four smartphones bought between October 10-15 in India were on Flipkart. The spokesperson said there was almost 50 per cent growth in number of new customers coming in, while one out of two shoppers used payment schemes like EMIs and bank offers.

Flipkart pointed out that it saw close to 25 million people visiting its app on one of the sale days. This is the first mega shopping event being organised by Flipkart after Walmart acquired 77 per cent stake in the company in a USD 16 billion deal earlier this year.